


A Visit From St Eames

by storm_of_sharp_things



Category: Inception (2010)
Genre: Christmas, M/M, Post-Inception, fluff and feelings, pre-COVID
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-19
Updated: 2019-12-19
Packaged: 2021-02-24 15:28:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,061
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21860179
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/storm_of_sharp_things/pseuds/storm_of_sharp_things
Summary: It’s the job before Christmas and Arthur is sick,Not even Cobb notices - but c’mon, he’s a dick.The team all have plans for some holiday cheer,To celebrate Christmas with those they hold dear.But Arthur’s alone with no true family,And he’s coming down ill but he won’t let them see.‘Course Eames pays attention and he won’t let it go,The lure of the point man is strong (as we know).Yes, Arthur is Jewish but Eames won’t hold back.The spirit of the thing is to address any lack.And Eames is determined to give comfort and joy,And bring dimples to the face of a lonely sick boy.In the end, they’ll be cuddled in warmth and firelight,My Christmas gift for this fandom — and to all such a night!...no, that’s it for the bad poetry. The rest of it is prose, I promise!
Relationships: Arthur/Eames (Inception)
Comments: 18
Kudos: 57





	A Visit From St Eames

**Author's Note:**

> Update: PLEASE NOTE THAT THIS WAS WRITTEN PRE-COVID 
> 
> Well, I'm sick and it's nearly Christmas, therefore, this fic.
> 
> This can be a hard time of year and I've found such comfort in fanfic that I can only hope to return a hint of the favor. 
> 
> Honestly, you all rock, you magnificent and brave writers, you patient and irreplaceable betas, and you voracious and generous readers with your kudos and the sweetest, most amazing, comments. And even if you don't leave anything but a hit, thank you for dropping by to read, and may it add even the slightest brightness or a whisper of comfort to your day.

Eames knew Arthur was coming down sick. The point man had successfully hidden it from the rest of the team, but then neither the architect nor the chemist had worked with them before. Cobb had, of course, but with Christmas almost upon them, he was thinking only of getting home to spend the holidays with his kids.

It was a fairly complex job with a very significant payout; it required two separate forges for Eames to coordinate, and Arthur had to sort through the financial paperwork for two different companies and the three principal officers involved.

The first clue Eames had that Arthur was ill was that he left most of the planning to Cobb, only glancing up from his piles of paperwork and multiple monitors to offer a quiet comment here and there. Eames eventually took it upon himself to rein in Cobb’s more extreme ideas, as diplomatically as possible. The first time he’d challenged Cobb on some idiocy meant to speed the job, the extractor had slapped the table with a flat hand and demanded Eames stick to his competencies, and Eames had seen Arthur flinch, a slight furrow to his brow suggesting a headache.

Arthur stayed quiet as the job progressed, turned pale except for a flush high on his lovely cheekbones, the dullness in his eyes suggesting sleepless nights. His voice roughened slightly and he took to drinking endless cups of tea, which worried Eames considerably since he’d never seen Arthur on a job without a cup of coffee close to hand.

Cobb and the architect, an elegant Kenyan woman named Zawadi who had come recommended by Yusuf, bonded over discussions of Christmas traditions and family. Eames suspected the chemist, Oskar, of harboring hipster tendencies based on his long rants about the commercialization of holidays, but then he spent equal time reminiscing about family gatherings in Finland and how much he was looking forward to seeing all his cousins over the holidays.

Eames himself had happily abandoned his squabbling and dysfunctional family as a young man, and had yet to regret it, spending most holidays with friends or conning his way through tourist-filled resorts in warm climates. But as the others talked endlessly about their plans for get-togethers and holiday parties, Arthur grew quieter and quieter, burying himself in work and hiding an intermittent cough.

In bouts of sporadic research over the several years that Eames had known Arthur, he’d discovered that the point man had lost his only relative, his mother, three years ago. He also knew Arthur had been raised Jewish, though he was as discreet about any religious practices as he was about everything else.

Arthur hadn’t been in a relationship with anyone in the last couple of years, as far as Eames had been able to discover. And he had looked, even though Arthur didn’t mix business and pleasure, as Eames had discovered early on in their acquaintance. When he had first proposed a friendly fuck, lo those many years ago, he’d been politely turned down, Arthur explaining that Eames was the best in a very limited field and he didn’t want to risk their working relationship. Eames had shrugged and thought he’d move on. After all, a lovely arse in tailored trousers could be had in other places, but a competent _and_ trustworthy point man was more precious than a rumor of a previously unknown Van Gogh for a forger.

But he’d found himself growing more and more fond of Arthur over the years. He was indeed reliable, he was protective of his team, he worked harder than anyone else in dreamsharing to make sure any jobs he was on were solid, went well, everyone got paid, and no one played turncoat. Well, not more than once. Dreamshare was rife with gossip about Arthur’s various bloody revenges for rumored transgressions.

Certainly the man was dangerous. Eames had seen him in combat more than once in real life, and he was as handy with weapons awake as he was when he was under. And lord knows Eames had wanked enough to fantasies of stripping Arthur out of his sartorial splendour. Under the expensive bespoke suits, Arthur was fit as fuck.

But Eames had also seen what most people seemed to miss - Arthur had a wry sense of humour, a fondness for tacos and expensive sake and cheap bourbon (though not together), a lovely husky singing voice if he thought himself alone, a surprising ability to dance once he’d had a few drinks, and, best of all, _dimples_ , if one troubled oneself to tease him into smiling.

And oh how Eames had troubled himself over the years. But on this run, Arthur could only muster a weary twitch of his lips at best, and most of Eames’ sallies were met with a blank stare or a faint frown.

Arthur was sick and, like a cat, hiding it to the best of his abilities.

So Eames brought him takeaway pho when Arthur worked through lunches, and kept him in hot tea when Arthur spent his evenings trying to track the ghosts of transactions through carefully manipulated financial records. He left a huge bag of cough drops on his own desk, joking with the team that they made the best paperweight and no, it wasn’t that he had an oral fixation and anyway they tasted good. If he made sure that the bag was always carefully wide open so that it was easy to grab a few if one walked by Eames’ desk casually when no one was looking, well, it wasn’t as though anyone was going to bother counting them.

As they got closer to the completing the job, he also carefully cultivated a practical paranoia in the team so that they decided it was better to have someone with combat experience keep watch above while they slept. Arthur raised a token protest when Cobb declared Arthur would stay topside, but Eames thought he was secretly relieved. Fever, in a dreamer, could cause strange complications in the dream that could give the whole thing away. Not to mention the potential interactions Somnacin often had with cold and flu medications.

Eames took to toying with the temperature controls in the space, making it warmer when he saw Arthur shivering, and cooler when there was the faintest dew of sweat on that stoic brow. He ‘accidentally’ jammed the window near Oskar’s space permanently shut, simply because, when the chemist opened it, it caused a draft on Arthur.

And, at the successful conclusion of the job, after Zawadi and Oskar had hurriedly left to catch their flights, and Cobb had blithely abandoned the clean-up with breezy holiday wishes as he strolled out the door, Eames clenched his teeth and began the process of scrubbing away the last traces of their presence, normally the point man’s responsibility, but rarely left entirely to one person.

Arthur watched him from where he was slumped in his office chair, finally giving up the threadbare pretense of well-being. “Eames.” His voice was hoarse and he coughed openly for the first time.

Eames poured him a cup of hot tea and stirred in a generous dollop of honey before he placed it gently on the table at Arthur’s side and went back to cleaning.

Arthur took several small sips and sighed. “Thank you.”

“Don’t mention it, darling. Haven’t you got a flight out shortly?”

Arthur blinked, his eyes bright and feverish. “Yeah.”

Eames came back over to lightly feel Arthur’s forehead and cheek, frowning at the heat he felt. “Then best you get on it,” he suggested gently, wanting to tuck Arthur into a quiet dark hotel room and dose him so he could sleep for awhile, but he knew better than to suggest it.

“Eames.” Arthur caught his wrist, looking up at him, weary and vulnerable, and Eames felt his heart thump hard in his chest. “I mean it. Thank you.”

“You’re welcome, Arthur,” he said softly, and brushed the lightest kiss at Arthur’s temple before turning away to finish tidying up. He heard Arthur drag himself to his feet and head to the door, but he didn’t watch him go.

Just before the door shut, he heard Arthur say, in a miserable whisper, “Merry Christmas, Eames,” and a bright spark of determination flashed inside him and swelled.

Arthur awoke, groggy, in his bedroom in his Chicago brownstone. It was dark outside, and snowing heavily, and the heat cycled on with the familiar faint groan and muttered ticking that meant he was home.

It had been a long trip back and, honestly, he didn’t remember much of it, his only desire being home, comfort, security, wanting to burrow into his sybaritic bed with the soft pillows and fine linens and luxurious comforter and hide until he felt human again.

He didn’t know how long he’d been asleep, couldn’t even remember if it had been day or night when he arrived. He didn’t remember how much over-the-counter medication he’d last taken, but his head was pounding and he wanted drugs. When he pushed the covers off, he started coughing again, and he curled into himself until the coughing stopped.

And frowned at the bottle of water on his bedside table, the bottle of painkillers, the various blister-packs of cold medication, and a steaming mug of tea.

Outside his open bedroom door, he heard quiet music and someone humming. There was a soft thud and an equally soft “Bugger!” and so he downed a couple of tablets each of painkillers and a cough suppressant, pulled his dressing robe over his t-shirt and pajama bottoms, and shuffled downstairs with the mug of tea to find out what the hell Eames was up to.

When he came down the stairs, he had to stop and sit down at the bottom as he stared around in shock.

Tall creamy candles glowed in every window, accented with elegant chocolate-brown silk ribbon bows, gilt-edged. Clear glass bowls full of tiny dim white lights and blown glass pinecones, tinted a rich brown, were placed here and there, highlighting the boughs of live greenery, spruce and pine and fir and cedar, that scented the air just enough that Arthur could make out the slightest hint of it through his clogged nose. The fireplace was lit, logs burning merrily and radiating a delicious heat. Throw pillows gleamed here and there in silken or satin or velvet jewel tones, and luscious blankets and throws in deep sapphire and forest green and darkest coffee were draped over each piece of furniture, tempting Arthur to curl up in them, to nest there in warmth and softness and comfort, lit by the glow of firelight and candlelight.

Most years, Arthur was content to put up a few dignified and precise strings of lights in the front windows to celebrate the holidays. Christmas had always been a time of year he somewhat dreaded, especially since his mother had passed away. But this, this soft and welcoming and overwhelming spectacle...

He focused on the display table by the bay window. After inception, Saito had sent him an exquisite bonsai forest of spruce trees in a flat ceramic pot. Now, one of the tiny trees in the forest had been carefully decorated with even tinier strings of delicate white lights.

Arthur felt a tightness in his throat as he stared around.

Soft piano music was playing in his kitchen, a lovely instrumental rendition of Silent Night. Eames was humming quietly along with it, and Arthur could hear the sound of chopping.

He pushed himself to his feet and walked to the kitchen, the antique floorboards creaking softly underfoot.

Eames glanced up at him with an uncertain smile, knife poised over a mound of vegetables on the cutting board, stockpot simmering behind him on the stove. “Arthur, darling...”

He looked delicious in a dark blue cableknit sweater and jeans, barefoot and comfortable in Arthur’s kitchen, in Arthur’s home, and Arthur put the mug down on the counter as he came over and hugged him, tucking his face into Eames’ throat and shoving his hands under the sweater against the warmth of Eames’ back.

He felt Eames relax and the forger’s arms settled around him. “I _hoped_ you wouldn’t mind,” Eames murmured into Arthur’s hair, breath stirring the stray curls. “I don’t have to stay, pet, if you’d rather...”

“Stay,” Arthur whispered.


End file.
